Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day021.06
Last-Modified: 2000/07/24
Q. "Please find out. I have to know what the game is".
that a fair translation, admittedly it is ----
A. Yes -- no, it is fine.
Q. --- obviously not a verbatim recollection, but that was
his impression.
A. That is fine.
Q. "It was my impression that we all and even Hitler himself
were totally in the dark". I assume that is what he means
by "musspot". "Nobody knew anything about anything.
I can only say", and then he continues with his own
impression: "Form my many years with Hitler and on his
staff, if that had been organized by Hitler and with
Hitler's knowledge, a charade on that scale would have
been impossible. I would not put it past Goebbels,
. P-48
absolutely not". And then what does he say? "Then Hitler
became angry and raised his voice quite loudly to
Aberstein and said: 'I demand that order is restored at
once'." Is this now another source saying the same thing
that Schaub said?
A. It seems to be, yes.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Would you like to read the next sentence?
MR IRVING: "That was, however, limited just to Munich.
I overheard that because the conversation took place as
I was on the way out". In other words, von Below was
returning to his own quarters -- [German] as they say in
German. Then he quite frankly admits what happened with
regard to the "directive to Goebbels or to Himmler for the
rest of the Reichs territory, that, I do not know". Then
comes a bit of hearsay: "I spoke once more with Aberstein
about this business in Nuremberg prison in 1948 and
I asked him: 'Did you know anything about it before you
came to Hitler's?' He described it to me just as I had it
in my own recollection". Is that significant? Do we
derive from that that it came as a surprise to Aberstein too?
A. It is unclear what time he is talking about here, and
I find that difficult to accept.
Q. Is it significant, in other words?
A. I mean, this is 30 years after the event, Mr Irving. He
has had an enormous amount of time to concoct a story
. P-49
which will exculpate himself from involvement in these
events which is in his clear interests to do.
Q. How could von Below had been implicated in any way
himself?
A. Because he was with Hitler.
Q. But how would that in any way have made him into an
accomplice?
A. Because Hitler ordered this pogrom.
Q. Why would he have invented this conversation with
Aberstein in Nuremberg prison where Aberstein confirms 10
years after the event, "It was surprise to me too"? Was
there any reason? Does it not look like a piece of
verisimilitude again then? A random scrap of something
that stuck in his memory over the years that he then
repeats to me 20 years later on as something that always ----
A. It is extraordinary, is it not, Mr Irving? All these old,
all these police officers and SS men have been with Hitler
during the appalling violence against the Jews in 1938,
many years afterwards when it has become clear that
society and the world disapprove very strongly of these
events, all tell each other, "Well, I did not know
anything about it. I had not heard about it"?
Q. Can we just look finally on the von Below and if we just
on the final page, at the end of the first paragraph on
that page, there is just one little passage that I am
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doing to draw your attention to: "For a long time Hitler
did not really place much trust in him", that is Goebbels,
"but then after a while he began to on matters of
importance, because Goebbels had the knack of putting
things forward, putting forward his things in a very
logical and penetrating manner, Hitler was in some way a
sucker for this whole kind of act. There is no doubt
about that."
A. Yes.
Q. Is that an unusual picture of Hitler, that he could be
taken in by members of his staff, do you think, or taken
advantage of from your expertise as an ----
A. Yes.
Q. --- historian on the Third Reich?
A. Yes, it is somewhat unusual, yes.
Q. Have you heard it before by other authors, that Hitler was
not such a strong man after all, that he was taken
advantage of?
A. I do not think "taken advantage of" is a phrase that other
authors would use. I mean, there is sort of glimmering of
-- I mean, this is not to be dismissed entirely, as it
were. It is clear, I think, it is general agreement, that
the Reichskristallnacht was initially Goebbels' idea.
Q. And, overall, looking at the von Below interview, now that
they are in front of you completely transcribed and
translated, in general, is it a proper interview or has it
. P-51
been deliberately skewed in some way by the man asking the
questions?
A. Well, as has been remarked several times now, the initial
question there is very much a leading question.
Q. Or picking up on something previously said during that
evening?
A. You would have to show me that before I could accept
that. In any case, it is a leading question.
Q. So I do not want to go over that because we have been over that.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Subject to that, it is an account which bears
out what Mr Irving writes in Goebbels?
A. No, I am not -- not entirely, no, my Lord.
MR IRVING: Can I ask you to have a look at the Aberstein
telegram of the previous evening?
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Pause a moment. It is really the top of page
277, I suppose?
A. Of Goebbels?
Q. Of Goebbels. I mean, I will read it to you. It is two
lines. "According to Luftwaffe adjutant Nicolaus von
Below, Hitler phoned Goebbels, 'What's going on?' he
snapped, and, 'Find out'".
A. Yes, now, in his memoirs von Below says something rather
different, that he conducted his phone conversation with
Goebbels on his own from his living room, so that
contradicts what he says in the interview. In other
. P-52
words, if he conducted the phone conversation on his own
from his living room, he could not have heard what Hitler
was saying to Goebbels on the phone. That is at page 258,
paragraph 6, of my report.
MR IRVING: Will you accept that I have the original typescript
of von Below's memoirs that he wrote in 1947 and I was
relying on that and not on a later published work. When
were the memoirs published? In 1980?
A. In 1980 in Meinz, yes.
Q. So how could I have possibly made use of that in 'The
Warpath' which was published in 1977?
A. Well, I would say that von Below said, for what it is
worth, I quote him on paragraph 9 of page 260, that he
objected to your claim that he had provided you with
unpublished contemporary manuscripts and letters and
checked through pages of your manuscripts. He remembered
"some visits by Irving during which I answered his
questions. But I must decidedly reject his more
far-reaching claims as not corresponding to the truth".
Q. So what is von Below saying there, that he did not provide
me with any manuscripts?
A. I assume that is what he is saying, yes.
Q. He provided me with no letters, wartime letters?
A. If one is to believe him, that is what he is saying.
Q. If one is to believe the printed word and that he did not
revise the manuscript then it was written by me, is that
. P-53
correct?
A. That is what he says, I think, yes.
Q. Now, Professor, you or your researchers have had access to
my files in the Institute of History, have you not?
A. Yes.
Q. Have you seen in the correspondence file between myself
and Colonel von Below the covering letters with which I
sent the chapters to him and which I thanked him for
having returned the chapters to me, chapters which
included in the files are all his marginal comments on
precisely this chapter?
A. Provide me with copies and I will look at this again.
Q. Your researchers have worked in the archives, is that
right, on the Irving collection?
A. That is right, yes.
Q. And you have had my personal files of correspondence with
people like von Below containing all these matters and you
prefer to believe what a book published in 1980 says
rather than the evidence of your eyes, namely the chapters
amended in his handwriting?
A. Provide me with copies of those chapters and I will
comment on that. I have not seen them, no.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: You have not?
MR IRVING: You have not seen them?
A. No.
Q. Did you or your researchers bother to look in these files
. P-54
of correspondence between myself and Adolf Hitler's
private staff?
A. Can you name the files, give me core numbers of the
files?
Q. Will you answer my question? Did you or your researchers
bother to look at my files of correspondence?
A. Well, I have already said that we did not see them,
I mean, accepting for the moment your claim that there are
such files.
Q. But you are quite happy to repeat ----
MR JUSTICE GRAY: If they are in the discovery ----
A. If they are in the discovery, we can see them.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not know how difficult it is to dig them
out. I know there has been a massive amount of discovery.
MR IRVING: My Lord, they are no longer in my discovery, of
course, because I have given the originals to the Institute.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: I thought you were saying you had disclosed
them in this action, your correspondence with von Below?
MR IRVING: No, my Lord, I did not. With respect, I did not
say that. I said that these researchers have had access
in the Institute at Munich to all my private files in
which I have correspondence with Hitler's personal staff
which I donated to the Institute because of its historical
significance. It contains voluminous correspondence with
Colonel von Below, including the chapters which he
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corrected in his own handwriting in the margin with his
very characteristic handwriting. Why this passage appears
in his book is a mystery to me.
A final question on this matter of the
documents: Professor, have you seen in my discovery now
one page of extracts typed by me on my large faced
typewriter from von Below's original typescript manuscript
memoirs in my discovery?
A. Point it to me and I will ----
Q. On this particular episode?
A. Provide it to me and I will say whether I have seen it or not.
Q. Well, I sometimes wonder what the purpose of discovery is,
if all these documents are made available in numbered
folders to the defending solicitors and the evidence is
there, and yet they still write paragraphs like this.
A. Sorry, like what?
Q. It is insulting, is it not?
A. Like what?
Q. The allegation that I lied, is that not insulting, the
allegation that I lied about having had access to von
Below's private papers and manuscripts?
A. That is his allegation.
Q. Yes, but you have repeated it. Is it not insulting for
you to put that in there, although the evidence in the
discovery is that I did not lie?
. P-56
A. If the man -- well, first of all, I do say, draw attention
to the fact, that von Below is not always a very reliable
witness, so I think anything I say about von Below, it is
clear that it is with that caution. But if he does say in
his published memoirs that he takes strong exception to
your claims that you have -- that he checked through many
pages of your manuscript, then I think one is duty bound
to record that fact. The only way we can actually verify
this not desperately important point is, of course, by
looking at all the correspondence.
Q. You say it is not desperately important?
A. It is a rather peripheral issue, in my judgment.
Q. If a journalist or an expert said, "Professor Evans has
claimed to have had access to the private papers of
Colonel Smith" and Colonel Smith says, "This is a lie", is
that a peripheral point? Would you consider that to be a
peripheral point?
A. That is something slightly different. He also -- that is
a slightly different point.
Q. But do you say that Colonel von Below turns out to be
unreliable on many points. You remember that I asked you
earlier this morning, "Have you any impression about von
Below's reliability? Has he ever been demonstrably wrong
on anything he has written about?"
A. It is variable, yes. It is variable. He is unreliable on
some issues. One has to make a judgment about what he is
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saying.

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